Net Cafe Refugee (Japan)

 

Tokyo’s ‘internet cafe refugees’ and how coronavirus shone a light on Japan’s homelessness problem: Independent

Net Cafe Refugees: Metropolis

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What are Japanese Net Cafes?

Mirin Dajo

Wikipedia: Mirin Dajo

Sucked into a story about crooked Chinese ex-mayor

A recent New York Post article stated that "Chinese authorities found more than 13 tons of gold stashed away in the basement of a former mayor’s home during a corruption investigation, according to news reports.  Police found the loot — worth hundreds of millions of dollars — in a secret cellar in the home of Zhang Qi, a onetime high ranking communist party official and former mayor of Danzhou, the Pakistani newspaper The News International reported.  And it wasn’t only gold — police also seized more than $37 billion in cash and assets."

New York Post: Cops in China find 13 tons of gold stashed in ex-mayor’s cellar

The story got me thinking. How does one hide 13 tons of gold and another $37 billion in physical cash and assets? For that matter how much space are we talking about here? What does a ton of gold look like? What does a billion dollars in bills look like? Well, let's find out.

Starting with the gold, I found this image of 80 replica gold bars representing one ton of gold.

From this we can visualize 13 tons of gold taking up about as much space as 3 or 4 washing machines. Not all that significant and easily doable for a crooked politician or villainous drug lord. 

More interesting is the $37 billion in cash and assets. We have no idea how much of the assets were in cash but even if only a small portion of it was cash it would take up a great deal of space. Here is artist Michael Marcovici's depictions of what $1 billion in $100 USD notes would look like.

Of course the bust happened in China, so it is likely the bills where not United States Dollars. Chinese banknotes are in denominations of 1, 5, 10, 20, 50, and 100 Yuans. As of today it takes 7.15 Yauns to equal 1 US Dollar. So if the crooked ex-mayor was hording Yuans you have to visualize the image above times seven just to equal one billion. 

So returning to my original thought, it would take a significant amount of space to hide $37 billions in assets (actually $37 and a half since the gold was worth about half a billion dollars). The article says the police found it in a secret cellar of Zhang Qi's home. I guess it was one hell of a cellar. 

Highland Heights Elementary (R.I.P.)

I just came across a video of the demolition of Highland Heights elementary school, which I attended sometime around 1978 to 1982.



I got a little sentimental after seeing the old building come down and started poking around the internet.

The school was built in 1931 on Main and Renshaw Avenue as Dale Elementary (this was actually the third Dale Elementary location). It was renamed Highland Heights Elementary in 1960. The Campbell County School District closed it after building Crossroads Elementary in Cold Spring and the building was torn down in 2012.

Here's some video I found from another sentimental guy of the school just before and during it's demolition.








http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~kycampbe/highlandheights.htm

http://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/local/campbellcounty/2016/07/22/seniorhousing-comesback-highlandheights/87437046/

Popping a giant water balloon

Originally found here

Burning Man 2013

Adam Bacchus

September 2nd marked the end of the 2013 Burning Man festival in Nevada's Black Rock desert. As always there was plenty of eye candy exported back to us who didn't attend.

Jim Urquhart/Reuters

Trey Ratcliff

Neil Girling

Neil Girling

Neil Girling

Jeff Huber

Mack Reed

TWITA2005

Trey Ratcliff

TWITA2005

Jeff Huber

Reno Gazette-Journal, Andy Barron

Mack Reed

Jonathan Goody

George Krieger

Julia Wolf

Stupid, Manipulative ABC News Article

Maybe I'm a little irritable this morning but I just read this ridiculous ABC news article titled Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's Medical Care Is Covered at Federal Facility. In it, the reporter states that after receiving medical care for nearly a week at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Dzhokhar has been transferred into federal custody were his treatment will continue. "Since he is in federal custody, it's unlikely Tsarnaev or his family will have to pay for his medical care, as U.S. Federal Marshals are responsible for the health care of any inmate in their custody.

Maybe it's just me but it seems that the article has only one purpose and that is to manipulate the emotions of its readers into thinking that it is outrageous and maybe even unprecedented that we would be providing medical treatment for a terrorist. The truth is that the government is always responsible for providing the necessary medical care of all inmates. This is true at the local, state and federal level. It doesn't just happen at "The transformative moment when he's transferred into custody of the federal government" as the article implies.

Don't get me wrong, I despise these wicked terrorist and all that they believe in. I just can't stand when the media attempts to make a story out of nothing by simply manipulating its readers.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's Medical Care Is Covered at Federal Facility

Two years of blogging

Where does the time go?  I can't believe it has been two years since I started this blog!  This was actually my second attempt at blogging.  The first, which I started a number of years ago, did not last more than a few months.  For some reason this time around I have been a lot more committed to keeping this thing alive.

My original intention with starting this blog was to have a place that I could take note of things that I found interesting, clarify my thinking and to flesh out ideas.  This kind of personal blogging is a strange thing.  It is like you are having this conversation with yourself that you are also openly sharing with whoever may want to be a part of it.  This curious combination does come at a price.  On one hand you are writing for completely personal reasons, but as time goes on and more people start to read your blog, you begin to think about things more from the readers perspective.  This, to some degree, can affects what you post since you are thinking about how you will be perceived by others.  I don't believe it has had a large impact on what I have written but it does cause one to pause and reflect before clicking the publish button.  On second thought maybe it isn't a negative at all since it can force you to give more consideration to things instead of just going with a preconceived bias.

Anyway, while I can't say that the blog has been a runaway success, it has been a lot of fun seeing it develop from a monthly average of 140 views the first year to 1080 average views the second year.  It's kind of funny how sometimes the posts you put the most into will get next to no views while the ones you put almost no thought into are most popular.  For instance, when I first started this blog I wrote two papers on the federal debt.  The first paper was an introduction to the problem while the second one delved more into the details.  Both were well cited works which took a fair amount of time to write.  To date, the first one has had thirty views and the second one has had ten views.  On the other side, I wrote a short post on the bare bones basics of flowcharts which has a simple example I nabbed from somewhere.  That post, for whatever reason, consistently gets hits every month and to date has had just over a thousand views.

Then there are the shooting star posts which shine brightly for a short period before burning out.  The one experience I have had with this was my post on a short sci-fi cgi film called Ruin.  I must have stumbled upon it at just the right moment.  Over the course of 3 days I received about two thousand views and then after that, next to nothing.

Anyway, I think overall the whole blogging thing has been a worthwhile endeavor.  I would like to thank those of you who have taken time out of your busy lives to share in some of my interests and thoughts.  I would also like to encourage you to try blogging out for yourselves.  I read a number of blogs myself but am especially interested in what friends and family members are thinking about.

Gustav Hoegen's Animatronics

The unbelievable animatronics of Gustav Hoegen.  The music is pretty annoying so you might want to watch it with the volume off.

The go anywhere vehicle:Scamander ATV

I'm not much of a car guy but this video of the amphibious Scamander ATV is impressive. The Scamander was the brainchild of Peter Wheeler, former owner of TVR automotive. Wheeler started the project in 2003 but sadly died in 2009 before it was finished. Fortunately his wife and a team of engineers were able to complete the project resulting in this amazing vehicle which is seemingly able to traverse difficult terrain as well as smoothly navigate across the water.

Starry Night made from Dominos

I'm amazed at the level of commitment and focus some people can direct toward ephemeral projects.

Amazing LEGO contraption

The most amazing useless contraption I've seen in a while

Eating in Space

My wife and I went to see Hubble at the Imax this past weekend.  I got a kick out of this scene of an astronaut making a burrito in space.



So I thought I would add a few more eating in space videos.

Omni Magazine

When I was a boy, sometime between the ages of maybe 8 to 11, I remember my father had a subscription to a science/science fiction magazine called Omni.  It was a strange blend of articles about science, futurism, the paranormal, sci-fi stories and fantastic art. Each issue was like a doorway to another world filled with strange creatures and bizarre landscapes.  It had a style which was endemic of the times, combining the older new wave movement in science fiction with the developing cyber punk genre.

It also had a pretty good run with it's first issue published in October of 1978 and the last in Winter of 1995.  After that it ran as a webzine from 1996 to 1998.  Other Omni related media included a short run television show called Omni: The New Frontier, Omni comics, and a series of music CD's.  What follows is a selective taste of what Omni was about.


Magazine Covers

Articles

Vernor Vinge: First Word (arguably first article on the Singularity)

Dougal Dixon: Visions of Man Evolved

Short Stories

Here are links to some of the short stories published in Omni which later became classics of the sci-fi genre.

William Gibson: Johnny Mnemonic

William Gibson: New Rose Hotel

Orson Scott Card: Unaccompanied Sonata

Terry Bisson: They're Made Out of Meat

George R. R. Martin: Sandkings

Music

Here are a few of the songs which were on the first of the Omni series of CD's.

Ray Lynch: The Oh of Pleasure

Mars Lasar: The Eleventh Hour


David Arkenstone: Rain


Television
Omni: The New Frontier



Addendum 05/16/13
Just discovered that you can now view almost the entire run of Omni magazine here.
https://archive.org/details/omni-magazine

Ice Cream in Istanbul

Turkish ice cream

The Entitlement Mindset

I really don't have to say anything. I only have to quote Amanda. When asked if she felt it was ethically ok to continue using food stamps after winning the $1,000,000 lottery she said "maybe it was ok because I'm not working". She followed up with "I feel that it's okay because I mean, I have no income and I have bills to pay,I have two houses."

How The Mighty Fall: A Blade Runner Retrospective

Though not a financial success, Blade Runner has become a major sci-fi cult classic. Released in 1982 the film's plot takes place in a dystopian future Los Angeles.  For the early eighties, the visuals were stunning and in my humble opinion are still quite amazing even by today's standards.  The city is dark, crowded and polluted with a mixture of both decaying old buildings and new modern architectural behemoths.  Featured on the sides of these buildings, as well as on the streets, are advertisements for various mega-corporations such as Atari, Pan Am, Coca-Cola, Polaroid, Cuisinart, Hilton, RCA, Toshiba, etc.

At the time the movie was released, these were all major corporations and it would have been easy to envision there continued success well into the future.  But unfortunately for most, the real world was not as kind to many of the companies as their fictional futures presented in the movie.  Pan Am, which was the largest international air carrier in the United States when Blade Runner was released, declared bankruptcy in 1991.  In the late 70's and early 80's, Atari was king of  home video gaming consoles.  Yet by the early 90's it had suffered a number of huge loss years and was repeatedly bought and sold.  Now it really only lives on in memory.  Such fates also fell upon Polaroid, Cuisinart and RCA. When I think of today's top companies, names like Walmart, Apple, Starbucks and Google come to mind. Though they now seem like unstoppable titans, I wonder how many of them will be gone twenty or thirty years from now as competitive pressure forces them out in order to make way for the new kids on the block?

LEGO man space oddity

Two Toronto teens launch a weather balloon carrying that fearless adventurer LEGO man into space.

Pretty cool, here is the news report.

Hip to like Mao?

The other day I was watching a TED Talk featuring Bunker Roy, an Indian social activist. I wanted to find out more about him so I did a google search and read a few articles. The one thing that struck a nerve in me was his acknowledgement of being influenced by the philosophy of Mao Zedong. This is not the first time I have read about an intellectual being influenced by Mao but I find it odd that it is largely acceptable to publicly acknowledge it.

To make my point, lets take a look at some of the atrocities committed under the rulership of Mao.

1949 - The People's Republic of China was established on October 1 under Mao Zedong.

1951- "Inside China the policies of moderation are replaced by a campaign against 'enemies of the state' that will affect millions. Foreigners and Christian missionaries are branded as spies. Landlords and wealthy peasants are stripped of their land. Intellectuals, scientists, professionals, artists and writers are forced into 'self-criticism' and public confessions of their failings in relation to communist ideals."

"Incompetent and politically unreliable public officials are purged. Corrupt businessmen and industrialists are removed from the system. The bourgeoisie are held in suspicion. Reports suggest that from one to three million are executed during the campaign." (1)

1958 - "Mao launches the 'Great Leap Forward' to accelerate the development of all sectors of the economy at once...It soon becomes apparent that the Great Leap Forward is an ill-considered failure. Rather than boosting production, the Great Leap Forward brings shortages of food and raw materials and the demoralisation and exhaustion of the workforce...Widespread famine results, especially in rural areas.

It is estimated that from 1958 to 1961, 14 to 20 million more people die of starvation than in similar years of poor harvests. The number of reported births is about 23 million less than under normal circumstances.

Other estimates place the number who die because of the famine at between 23 and 45 million

Mao refuses to recognise or deal with the reality of the situation, saying "When there is not enough to eat, people starve to death. It is better to let half of the people die so that the other half can eat their fill." (1)

1959 - "In April the fallout of the Great Leap Forward sees Mao resign as chairman of the People's Republic, although he remains chairman of the CCP." (1)

1962 - "Mao returns from the 'second line' of decision-making and begins a campaign to purify the party of 'capitalists' and 'counter-revolutionaries', using his enormous status to hold sway. His 'Socialist Education Movement' seeks to restore ideological purity and intensify the class struggle, calling on the population to to learn from the People's Liberation Army', which in turn is asked to promote 'Mao Tse-Tung Thought' as the guiding principle for a renewal of the revolution.

The school system is reorganised to accommodate the work schedule of communes and factories. Intellectuals and scholars are 'reeducated' to accept that their participation in manual labour is needed to remove 'bourgeois' influences. The education movement will become increasingly militant" (1)

1966 - (Cultural Revolution) "Schools, colleges and universities are closed. Virtually all engineers, managers, scientists, technicians, and other professionals are 'criticised,' demoted or 'sent down' to the countryside to 'participate in labour.' Many are jailed. Management of factories is placed in the hands of ill-equipped revolutionary committees. As a result, the country experiences a 14% decline in industrial production in 1967.

China's traditional respect for learning and the experience of age is turned on its head. Many cultural artefact's are damaged or destroyed. Cultural expression is severely curtailed. Religious practices are suppressed."(1)

The cultural revolution continues for ten years during which time millions are persecuted and suffered abuses such as torture, imprisonment, rape and seizure of property.(2)

This is by no means a complete summary, I'm just highlighting major events.

Bottom line, Mao was a bad guy. If Bunker Roy said that he was influenced by the philosophies of Hitler no one would give him the time of day. How strange it is that Mao doesn't seem to produce the same illicit response.



(1)More or Less:Heroes and Killers
http://www.moreorless.au.com/killers/mao.html
(2)Wikipedia: Mao Zedong
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mao_Zedong

The Wonder of it all1

Though it is easy to get bogged down by the nuts and bolts of our daily lives, I think it is important to step back and reflect upon all the beautiful and amazing things this world has to offer. I believe that doing so helps to free us from our monotonous routines and allows us to cultivate a sense of wonder. So to help facilitate that cultivation, I am going to start a series of post sharing some of the various things I have come across which leave me feeling a sense of wonder.

I saw this on TED talks and found it to be amazing:



And this beautiful cyr wheel performance